Editorial: Spy programs must be checked

U.S. surveillance programs have gotten completely out of control; they seem wildly inefficient in ways and far too random. There is little, if any, meaningful judicial oversight, and in this particular area, the public must expect more, much more.

Recent documents unearthed by the Associated Press are both telling and disturbing.

They reveal that a federal judge who oversaw a secret U.S. spy court almost shut down the government's operation after he "lost confidence" in officials' ability to manage it.

Specifically, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton criticized government officials for accessing domestic phone records for nearly three years without "reasonable, articulate suspicion" that they were connected to terrorism.

This is precisely the concern many have been raising about the government's domestic surveillance programs designed to fight terrorism.

In their quest to provide national security and thwart terrorism, government officials also must be made mindful that proper checks and balances are needed to protect privacy rights.

And if Congress isn't up to the job of setting those checks on the executive branch, then the courts simply must.

The National Security Agency and FBI have conceded they have been tapping into the nation's main Internet companies and, thus, are able to track the movements and sift through data of citizens. Government officials also have been able to access hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records to check for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad.

Federal agents are required to obtain orders from an intelligence court to force businesses and others to turn over such records.

Judge Walton wrote that he was "deeply troubled" that, in some cases, sensitive phone records were being distributed via email to analysts not approved by the court to see them.

Yet, in a recent vote in the House of Representatives, NSA spy programs have been left in place, though the tally was close, 217-205.

Congress and the courts have to put more pressure on the executive branch to follow the letter of the law when it comes to administering these programs.

No one is trying to tie the hands of the president and his administration if national security is at imminent risk. But it's clear these programs have been exploited and have become the normal way government does business, not the exception.

Neither Congress nor the courts have fully challenged the administration on that point. It's past time they did.

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Editorial: Spy programs must be checked

U.S. surveillance programs have gotten completely out of control; they seem wildly inefficient in ways and far too random. There is little, if any, meaningful judicial oversight, and in this